The design and manufacturing process for many rechargeable batteries, including lithium rechargeable batteries, often involves fabricating thin laminates of powder-based electrodes, which are highly compressed by calendering, and which are subsequently infused with inorganic liquid electrolytes. Porous electrode theory has been developed to understand and model transport in such electrodes. The electrode designs employed to produce many current batteries is in many ways a poor compromise, forced by practical manufacturing considerations. Because the lowest-cost forms of metal oxide or carbon-based electrode-active materials are powders, electrode fabrication processes have been developed to accommodate starting materials of powder form. For cylindrical or prismatic cells, the electrode generally must simultaneously attempt to meet all of the following properties: 1) a windable or stackable form, strongly adhered to thin aluminum or copper current collector foils; 2) adequate electronic conduction; 3) adequate ionic conduction; and 4) high volume packing energy density. In order to achieve a high volumetric packing of active material, pressure-consolidation is practiced. However, such electrodes also have a substantial amount of electrochemically-inactive material such as polymer binders and carbon conductive additives. These are soft materials of low density, and are deformed during the pressure-consolidation process into the space between the harder particles of lithium storage materials, which can lead to the formation of tortuous pores. The use of such electrodes can be disadvantageous for a variety of reasons. Accordingly, improved electrodes and methods for making the same would be desirable.